My checklist basically has me go through a workflow for bootstrapping the day.
-Start a 15 minute time
-Sweep events and tasks from three different calendars into my schedule for the day. Each task list is divided into "24-hour" "1-week" "1-month" deadline objects. Each time I read through each list, I move tasks around as neccessary within the list, and potentially mark certain items as not being chunked small enough - e.g. the first thing to do about those tasks is to decompose them into subtasks.
Then I look at the list of things I've selected for the day, and assign short tasks to the first block of the day, and then two longer blocks for focused work, using timers all the way. 15 minute timers for the short tasks, 2-hour timers for the long ones.
Items don't get deleted off the to do lists when they get transported to my daily list - they get deleted when I go through those tasks the next day and mark them done in my journal. That way I don't lose tasks that don't get done at the end of the day..
None of this matters. You need to figure out what your sticking points are each day and address those creatively. Mine were not starting tasks because I didn't know where to start exactly, and getting distracted during a task. My system still isn't perfect - I often lose track of things after lunch sometime and stop being effective. It's a battle every day, but you get to build your own weapons to fight it.
